Approximate TMR based on successive approximation and loop perforation in microprocessors

Rodrigues, Gennaro S.; Fonseca, J.S.; Kastensmidt, Fernanda Lima; Pouget, Vincent; Bosio, Alberto; Hamdioui, Said

doi:10.1016/j.microrel.2019.06.077

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In summary, input vectors for which only two out of three AxICs compute correctly are not protected against faults. A possible alternative to mitigate the problem is to adopt a modified checker that computes the average of the results, as proposed in [18] for a software ATMR implementation. However, in this case the outputs are approximate (i.e., not precise).…”

Section: Approximation-based Fault Tolerancementioning

confidence: 99%

Design Space Exploration of Approximation-Based Quadruple Modular Redundancy Circuits

Traiola

Echavarria

Bosio

et al. 2021

2021 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the last decade, Approximate Computing (AxC) has been studied as a possible alternative computing paradigm. It has been used to reduce the overhead cost of conventional fault tolerant schemes, such as the Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR). One of the most recent propositions is the concept of Quadruple Approximate Modular Redundancy (QAMR). QAMR reduces the overhead cost w.r.t. conventional TMR structures, while guaranteeing the same fault-tolerance capability. In this paper, we propose a new approximation technique to realize the QAMR and we perform a Design Space Exploration (DSE) to find QAMR Pareto-optimal implementations. Moreover, we provide the design of a new majority voter for the proposed architecture. Experimental results show that it is possible to find QAMR variants achieving area and/or delay gains compared to the TMR counterpart, for 85.4% and 97% of the examined circuits for FPGA and ASIC technologies respectively.

show abstract

Section: Approximation-based Fault Tolerancementioning

confidence: 99%

Design Space Exploration of Approximation-Based Quadruple Modular Redundancy Circuits

Traiola

Echavarria

Bosio

et al. 2021

2021 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Approximate TMR (ATMR) is based on implementing each redundancy task with a different architecture or algorithm [35]. When applied to hardware projects, ATMR has been presented as a way to achieve fault coverage almost as good as traditional TMR but avoiding the huge area overhead that it costs [36].…”

Section: Approximation and Fault Tolerancementioning

confidence: 99%

Survey on Approximate Computing and Its Intrinsic Fault Tolerance

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This work is a survey on approximate computing and its impact on fault tolerance, especially for safety-critical applications. It presents a multitude of approximation methodologies, which are typically applied at software, architecture, and circuit level. Those methodologies are discussed and compared on all their possible levels of implementations (some techniques are applied at more than one level). Approximation is also presented as a means to provide fault tolerance and high reliability: Traditional error masking techniques, such as triple modular redundancy, can be approximated and thus have their implementation and execution time costs reduced compared to the state of the art.

show abstract

“…The ATMR technique proposed in [30] is not restricted by mathematical constraints and utilizes the notion of approximation intensity and successive approximation. Through successive approximation algorithms, with each loop, output quality is iteratively improved.…”

Section: ) Atmr Based On Successive Approximation and Loop Perforatio...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, the Newton-Raphson benchmark successively approximates to compute the roots of the function. This algorithm is used as a benchmark application in [30]. FIGURE 9.…”

Section: ) Atmr Based On Successive Approximation and Loop Perforatio...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Approximate Triple Modular Redundancy: A Survey

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years, approximate computing (AC) has attracted attention owing to its tradeoff between the exactness of computations and performance gains. AC has also been probed for the technique of Triple modular redundancy (TMR). TMR is a well-known fault masking methodology, with associated overheads, widely used in systems of different nature and at different levels. E.g.: layout-level, gatelevel, HW-module level, software. At hardware level, through exploitation of AC the 200% area overhead problem due to triplication of the original modules in TMR can be reduced. By approximating the modules of TMR while ensuring that at least two of the approximate modules do not differ from the original module for every input vector, the facilitation of fault masking can lead to overhead reduction. Hence, approximate TMR (ATMR) aims to achieve cost-effective reliability. Nevertheless, due to the extensive search space, computational complexity, and principal fault masking function of ATMR, designing an ATMR is a challenging task. An ATMR technique must be scalable so that it can be easily adopted by circuits having large number of inputs and the extraction of ATMR modules remains computationally inexpensive. Compared with TMR, due to the inclusion of approximations, ATMR is more vulnerable to errors, and hence, the design technique must ensure awareness of input-criticality. To the best of the authors' knowledge, none of the existing survey articles on AC has reported on ATMR. Therefore, in this work, ATMR design techniques are thoroughly surveyed and qualitatively compared. Moreover, design considerations and challenges for designing ATMR are discussed.

show abstract

Approximate TMR based on successive approximation and loop perforation in microprocessors

Cited by 15 publications

References 5 publications

Design Space Exploration of Approximation-Based Quadruple Modular Redundancy Circuits

Design Space Exploration of Approximation-Based Quadruple Modular Redundancy Circuits

Survey on Approximate Computing and Its Intrinsic Fault Tolerance

Approximate Triple Modular Redundancy: A Survey

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About